~ Runnin' 'Round in My Mind

Tag Archives: reading

I’ve never had the feeling of NOT wanting to read. I’ve always read, even in some of my darkest times, I’ve always been reading a book, and at times, when my thoughts were scattered and I was indecisive because of my depression, I may have been reading more than one book at a time.

But I’ve never lost the passion for reading until now.

It’s weird. So weird. I can’t say I’ve lost it completely. Maybe once a week, I’ll pick up the most current book I’ve been in and have read a couple of pages.

But usually, I read through pages with passion, even with books I’m not as invested in or not very intrigued by. Lately, that’s not the case.

Has this ever happened to you?

And what can make this change, recapture my spirit for the written word? It might be that I’ve been spending so much time writing that I’m tired of the written word. I’m not quite sure. Instead of writer’s block, I have reader’s block.

Is that such a thing? I don’t know, but it must be. At least for me it is.

And it’s sad. I feel riddled with guilt.

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I read aloud to my love before bed tonight the Longreads blog post “Escape from Jonestown“. If you have never read anything about it before, you should. It’s a great example of when religion, power, cults, and drugs meet together. It’s a great example of when people put their faith in a human and exalt him above all gods and science. It’s a great example of how blind people can be when they want to believe and hope for something better, some utopia that will never exist.

I encourage you to read it, and read it aloud with someone you love. Something like this, when reading it aloud, brings out an intimacy that is rare and special and connecting. It’s an intimacy that few couples experience in this world, and I am happy to be one of the lucky ones who experience it on a more regular basis, enough so to be envied.

Take my word for it. Read aloud to your love, in the bed, soaking in a luxurious bath, while on holiday, etc., and you will see. Read heart-wrenching or heart-warming stories. It doesn’t matter. It’s the spending of time together, only one voice speaking to listening ears, and the connection is amazing. Things will change. You will become connected in an intimate way you never thought possible.

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Within the first year of publishing his first novel, She’s Come Undone, Author Wally Lamb received a letter from a 20-something male named David F. praising the book. The way he wrote the letter prompted Wally to write back and encourage him to pursue writing for his own career. Wally said he would like to meet him, but David wasn’t sure he could handle that type of encounter at the time. He’d been suffering from a mental health issue for cutting. They instead began a pen-pal type of relationship which continues to this day. About 15 years later, at a book reading for Wally’s third book, The Hour I First Believed, David Fitzpatrick, now the author of Sharp, introduced himself. He told Wally that he’d finally gotten the right therapy and psychotropic medications that allowed him to climb out of his serious mental illness.

What amazes me about this is how gracious Wally Lamb must be with others. I’m hooked on him already, and I haven’t even finished past page 23 yet. One thing I know is that “Undone” is going to be a fast read for me. The pace is outstanding and makes me want to devour it.

In his Introduction to the 20th Anniversary Edition, Wally presents us with the backstory of how Dolores, the main character, came to be, and how he developed her as a character. He also lets us in on how the process of publishing, and all that goes with that, can affect an author and those around him.

This book is, so far, a good read, and it’s so good, I don’t have to read the entire book to recommend it. But I’m not Oprah Winfrey, so if you go by that book club thing of hers, he made her list. I think he mentions in the introduction that She’s Come Undone was the third book on her list once she started the “Oprah’s Book Club”, and he was the first male on the list.

For me, I just love finding out how a true gem like this novel, even though it’s 20 years old, is still significant and new and refreshing as it was the day it was published. I love finding “new-to-me” reads.

One of the best things about reading a book, watching a film, or even writing my own story, is that I don’t know how they’re going to end.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. I couldn’t believe that after feelings of loss and betrayal and an innocent child’s pure honesty that it turned out the way it did. What was great about that film is that it didn’t really follow the book, but it stood on its own, and it was just as magical as the book was, in its own way.

“The Wizard of Oz” left me reeling toward the end when I saw it. Will Dorothy ever get home? Oh my gosh, even though Oz and the journey to it was a place I wanted (still want) to visit, I would miss my family and friends too much. How will she ever, ever get home? I feared she would never see her family again.

In 1987, Gene Hackman and Kevin Costner starred in the film “No Way Out” and blew the ending out of the water at the very last possible moment in that film. Suddenly you’re in one direction, and then you’re not just on a different road, you’re in a different car, on a different road, in a completely different country.

In 1999, Bruce Willis counsels a boy who sees dead people. Did ANYONE see that coming? No. No one did. And don’t try to convince me otherwise. If you really lost yourself in that film, there’s no way you could see that coming. But HOLY HELL, that film had a huge impact on me, on how to turn a story around, how to see it from a completely different perspective. (I still have faith in you, M. Night Shyamalan!)

In 2008, the last book of the Twilightsaga, Breaking Dawn, had me on the edge of the seat not knowing the fates of so many vampires and werewolves I’d come to know and love. Would they live or die? Who would live and who would die?

In 2007 (I leave the best for last, even if it’s not following my chronological order), J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in her seven-book series, I desperately hoped Harry, Ron, and Hermione would find and destroy the remaining horcruxes. Would Voldemort kill Harry? Would J.K. Rowling kill off anyone, and if so, who and why?

Why, why, why does anyone have to die, ever…well, we know why, or we don’t and just accept it. Or we accept it but don’t like it.

As I’ve gotten older, and information of all kinds in all different ways (news, information, car recalls, toy recalls, stupid criminals, and any other types of information being played out on TV, newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, and all kinds of other media formats), I have had to protect and safeguard my childhood innocence of not finding out what happens before I experience it myself. I’ve gone so far as to plug my ears while closing my eyes and singing LOUDLY to avoid hearing a smidge of info that I believe may remotely spoil a book or cinema experience for me.

I abhor (yes, a strong word, but it’s a strong feeling for me on this topic) any information about the ending of something that is beloved to me. I abhor knowing the ending of a story before I experience the story myself in the way it was intended to be experienced. (Yes, that’s probably me shooshing you in cinema if you’re making too much noise with your candy wrappers or talking to yor mate or GOD FORBID, on your mobile.)

I go to these worlds via books, film, TV shows, etc., as a way to dream, imagine, feel and express feelings, learn more about myself, and ultimately escape. So I don’t want to read in the paper how “Dexter”, the TV show, will ends its final season of the series. I don’t know want to know how “Burn Notice” or “Breaking Bad” will end their final season of their series, either.

I don’t want to know anything about any story until I have that first-hand experience myself.

Because once I know, I can’t unknow that experience, that ending. And therein lies a sadness: once I know, I can’t unknow. I only get to experience it once, brand new, with no preconceptions other than maybe the inside flap of the book or a trailer for a movie.

Some stories have such wonderfully unique, surprising gems that I want to go back and re-read with a new set of eyes to experience all that I felt and thought when I read it the first time.

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Picture a personal home library full of books of all genres, from all types of authors, from different decades and countries, contemporary, modern, classics. Some of the bindings are brand new, some are old and cracking, others are slick, some are hardcovers, some paperback. Now picture the library’s owner who hasn’t read even half of those books.

That owner is me.

Sadly, it’s not because I don’t love to read that I have so many books that I have yet to flip open. It’s just that I’m either writing so much (and all things related to that) or reading other books that I just haven’t got to reading the unread.

I’ve decided to make it my goal to walk into the library, close my eyes, spin around (safely, of course), and point. Upon opening my eyes, I will follow the tip of my finger to the book it most closely points and proceed to read it.

The unsettling part of the goal I just wrote is that I don’t have a time limit. By when do I want to do the finger-pointing ceremony? By when do I want to read that first finger-pointed book? By when do I want to have read all the unread?

Maybe there shouldn’t be a time limit because what would be the fun of that if the pressure is to finish the unread instead of actually enjoying the journey on which they take me?

Yes. Read the unread. That is the goal.

Update (8/10/13): I just found another (unintended) mini-library in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. More of the Unread. So sad, they’ve been there, laying in a coffin, waiting, just waiting to be rescued and have their pages unfurled. Soon, babies, soon. I’m a sad, sad home librarian. Shame spiral begins now.

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There’s so little time left to see and do and learn all the things I want to see and do and learn. I feel the tick tock of the clock, its volume beating louder and louder in my heart with each tick tock of the second hand. It reminds me of the past, reminds of the little bit left of the future, and abandons my efforts to live in the present.

I’ve been in a funk the past couple of days, and it’s because of the time I have left here on Earth. It’s all relative, of course, to when I was born, how old I am now. Looking at the past doesn’t help because there, in that time, are potential regrets, potential missed opportunities, or potential paths I could’ve/should’ve/would’ve chosen.

Yet, I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be, even if it’s in a funk. All those potential regrets, potential missed opportunities, or potential paths I could’ve/should’ve/would’ve taken have led me here. Without JKR, for example, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t have been able to get back into one of my biggest passions for life: reading, and ultimately, writing fiction.

So if I get in a funk every now and then, even if it lasts a few days, it leads to gratitude eventually. And that’s ok with me, thank you very much. Besides, it seems the “funk sessions” are just as great times to write as during other moods of mine.

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Since I write normally on a regular schedule with specific goals to reach, I decided to also write on a daily basis about…well…nothingness. Punctuality, grammar, proper sentence structure, the relentless use of ellipses, exclamation points, and smiley faces…well, there are no rules here for my blog.

I just saw the movie “Julie and Julia”, and even though I’ve been thinking of writing a blog on anything and everything, the film prompted me to actually start the blog.

So, even if no one comes across this or everyone in the world does, this blog is mainly for me, an outlet to my regular writing, something to just freely let the words flow.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I have a picture of Emma Watson, just know that I absolutely adore her. She’s lovely, just simply lovely, an inspiration for me for many things, especially in fashion. She’s a beautiful bloom whose parents never focused on her looks. Instead, she’s smart, witty, funny, AND beautiful. She inspires me to do my best for our future generations.